RU2144883C1 - Method of loading/unloading ships by direct transfer of cargoes from water to hold and vice versa - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: loading/unloading ships by direct transfer of cargoes from water and vice versa. SUBSTANCE: method consists in transfer of cargoes through receiving and transit compartments. First ship approaches cargo, gate of receiving compartment and common bulkhead with transit compartment are opened. At admitting sea water, ship floats on cargo which is positioned in her receiving compartment. Then gate is closed and cargo is positioned opposite transit compartment; then cargo is drawn into transit compartment at regulating the level of sea water, bulkhead is closed and cargo is lowered on bottom of compartment, after which water is discharged overboard, common bulkhead is opened and cargo is drawn into ship's hold where it is positioned as required. EFFECT: possibility of loading/unloading large-size solid cargoes having mass of many tons. 2 dwg

Description

 As you know, the loading and unloading of most vessels of various kinds by cargo in ports is carried out using a coastal crane, pump, etc. equipment. Today's level of development of loading and unloading equipment allows you to lift and carry loads of several tens of tons into a ship. The ships themselves, with the exception of special ones, do not have equipment for loading and unloading due to uselessness, as loaded and unloaded at ports.

 There are such vessels as ferries, landing craft, which are loaded from the coast by ramps through the bow or stern, or rather the transported goods themselves move into the hold and back.

 Today, the world fleet does not have ships whose design is designed for one-time receptions of bulky and multi-ton cargo. Because moving such cargoes onto a ship requires loading equipment, which will not be carried out in the foreseeable future, and the need for transportation of such cargoes has matured, for example, the transportation of many-thousand-ton ice blocks, a method of loading and unloading is proposed, which consists in moving cargo from water directly to the hold using a special vessel design.

 The aim of the study is to develop a method of loading a ship with bulky, multi-ton, whole loads by moving them directly from the water into the hold once through a special design of the bow or stern by adjusting the water level in them.

 The need to develop transport vessels for the transport of many-thousand-ton ice beams and methods of loading and unloading arose due to the problem of lack of drinking water in countries with hot climates and the study of the possibilities of delivering ice to these countries from Antarctica, Greenland, etc. The physical properties of frozen water - ice, its buoyancy in water and the uniqueness of this phenomenon in nature made it possible to approach the problem of loading, unloading, transporting it from the original side, still not considered.

 Ice delivery technology includes the stages of extraction from icebergs or glaciers, loading onto ships, transportation and unloading at destination. In this work, we consider the loading stage. For the possibility of its implementation, special designs of ships loaded from the bow or aft were developed. This vessel, containing a double-walled hull, pumps and winches on the deck of the vessel, side hulls with engines and other equipment, with the aim of increasing the loading capacity of holds of large-sized ice blocks, is supplemented at the stern of the hold by gates, sides, and a slope of slope, leaving inland to the sea the distance equal to the depth of immersion of the ice beam, two partitions, together with other features forming the loading compartment of the vessel, consisting of the receiving and transit compartments with a length equal to the length of the br sa ice.

Glaciers and icebergs of Antarctica were considered as a source of water. Obviously, there are three options for delivering water:
in the form of a liquid - this requires high energy consumption for melting ice and unacceptable loading times;
in the form of small pieces of ice - here the energy costs are slightly less, but the capital costs for various kinds of equipment increase significantly; the loading density of the hold is also reduced and loading times are increased;
in the form of large chopped ice beams weighing tens of tons, but at the same time the loading of the vessel is delayed for weeks, the volume of work for tugboats and crane equipment is increasing hundreds and thousands of times, etc.

 All of the above options unacceptably high increase the cost of water delivered, therefore, a method of delivery in the form of large ice beams, which in cross section are equal to the cross section of the hold, and in length multiple shorter lengths of the hold. The option is characterized by a minimum of costs for the preparation of the ice beam, its delivery to the vessel and its placement in the hold of the vessel. Ice is mined on an iceberg, ice shelf, or other ice source that provides the required dimensions of ice beams. An ice beam is obtained by the method of melting along a contour from an ice mass using ice cutters invented to solve this problem. Since the ice beam is to be placed in the hold of the vessel for transportation, its shape and dimensions must correspond to the dimensions and the typical U-shaped shape of the hold. Cut logs descend into the sea and then with the help of tugboats are pulled up to the ice trimaran, which is located at some distance.

 A schematic of a cargo handling vessel is shown in FIG. 12.

 Structurally, the vessel is a trimaran, since such a design provides the greatest stability, buoyancy and margin of safety during loading and unloading and transportation. The transfer of engines to the side hulls, which from auxiliary ones, as in a regular trimaran, turned into equally important ones, gave the trimaran high maneuverability necessary for loading and unloading operations with bulky cargo in water.

 The ship consists of three hulls. The middle hull 2 is designed for the transportation of bulky and massive cargo in a hold with double insulated walls. On the side hulls 1 and 3 are power equipment, fuel, pumps, ship engines. On the deck of the hull 2 there is a winch drive 4, a gear system 5 for controlling the aft gate 6 and partitions 7 and 8; hold slope 9 smooths the transition from the receiving compartment to the bottom of the vessel, elongated deep into the sea sides 10 and 11 form the side walls of the receiving compartment.

 In total, the aft hold doors 6, partitions 7, 8, hold slope 9, elongated sides 10, 11 form the loading compartment. Its design, consisting of the receiving and transit compartments, provides for water intake and placement in the hold of ice or other cargo in the water, the size and weight of which do not allow loading operations in the hold of the vessel by currently known technical means and methods.

 Bilge gates at the stern, made in the form of several pairs of leaves or vertically lowering and rising plates, are equal to the cross section of the receiving compartment of the loading compartment of the vessel. The transit compartment formed by the partitions ensures the reception, placement and transfer of an ice bar or cargo from the receiving compartment to the hold and isolation of the hold from the intake water during loading and unloading. The side hulls, which in the usual classical trimaran designs performed an auxiliary role to increase the stability of the vessel during water waves, in this vessel, designed for loading, unloading many-tonne-length ice blocks or other loads and transporting them over long distances, became the main ones with their own power plants, the location of them on them gave the vessel exceptional maneuverability and allowed them to be loaded from the water, and also significantly increased stability, buoyancy and load mnost vessel.

 Loading and unloading operations on a transport vessel are carried out as follows. When navigating the sea to the source of the raw material - an iceberg, the vessel moves with hermetically sealed aft gates 6 and partitions 7 and 8. When the towed ice bar is delivered to the loading place and the tugboat sailed for the next one, the operation for loading it into the hold of the hull 2 begins. gate 6 and partition 7. The receiving compartment and the transit compartment are filled with sea water to sea level. The design and dimensions of the receiving compartment are such that they provide reception and placement of ice intended for loading into the hold. The transit compartment is, as it were, an insulator of the hold from sea water. The trimaran, maneuvering the engines in the side hulls, floats with an open stern on the ice beam, until it completely fits in the receiving compartment. Then the gate 6 closes, and the sea water is pumped into the loading compartment until its level in it raises the ice bar to a height at which the bar pulled by the winch does not float from the receiving compartment into the transit compartment. The bulkhead 7 is closed, the remaining water, if any, is pumped overboard. The hold gate 6 opens and the water level in the receiving compartment drops to sea level. Then the bulkhead 8 opens, and the beam with the help of winches is pulled into the inside of the hold, where it is placed in the right place. Then the bulkhead 8 is lowered, isolating the hold from the receiving compartment, making it possible to proceed with the next loading operation. These loading operations are repeated until the vessel is fully loaded in several stages until the hold is filled.

Claims (1)

 A method of loading and unloading ships by moving floating cargo directly from the water into the vessel’s hold and vice versa, characterized in that, in order to ensure sealing of the hold, the movement of goods is carried out through the receiving and transit compartments, for which they initially approach the cargo, the gates of the receiving compartment are opened and the general its partition with the transit compartment, letting in the seawater, is floated onto the cargo and placed in the receiving compartment, the gates are closed, the cargo is placed opposite the transit compartment, adjusting the level of the sea water, unravels and accommodated in the transit chamber, and closed baffle is lowered onto the bottom of the compartment, evacuating the water overboard, open common with the hold septum retracted and accommodated in the hold.

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